There are situations when the time perspective
needs to be lengthened, and others when it needs to be shortened.
The man who says that it does not matter if 15,000,000 Chinese die of
famine, because in two generations the birthrate will make up the
loss, has used a time perspective to excuse his inertia. A person who
pauperizes a healthy young man because he is sentimentally
overimpressed with an immediate difficulty has lost sight of the
duration of the beggar's life. The people who for the sake of an
immediate peace are willing to buy off an aggressive empire by
indulging its appetite have allowed a specious present to interfere
with the peace of their children. The people who will not be patient
with a troublesome neighbor, who want to bring everything to a
"showdown" are no less the victims of a specious present.
6
Into almost every social problem the proper calculation of time
enters. Suppose, for example, it is a question of timber. Some trees
grow faster than others. Then a sound forest policy is one in which
the amount of each species and of each age cut in each season is made
good by replanting. In so far as that calculation is correct the
truest economy has been reached. To cut less is waste, and to cut more
is exploitation. But there may come an emergency, say the need for
aeroplane spruce in a war, when the year's allowance must be exceeded.
An alert government will recognize that and regard the restoration of
the balance as a charge upon the future.
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